Thailand

Diving and Relaxing on Koh Tao

Jan 23, 2018

Last November in Cairns I gained my first scuba diving experience by getting the Open Water Diver certification, together with 5 wonderful dives at the Great Barrier Reef. Then in New Zealand I extended my diving experience by two more dives at Milford Sound. With only seven dives, I did not feel confident enough and I wanted to build up some more experience. Therefore I signed up for the Advanced Open Water Course in Koh Tao, an Island not far away from Koh Samui where Ilinca signed up for a yoga retreat at the same time.

About Koh Tao

Koh Tao is a very small tropical island with lots of hills, forest, rocky cliffs and isolated beaches on its eastern side and two large beaches on its western side. While there are just a few hotels on the east coast, the west of Koh Tao is very touristic. Compared to Koh Samui however, it’s not high end resorts and spas that dominate the island, but it’s much more laidback and you meet thousands of backpackers in their early twenties enjoying their time at the small villages, the beach bars and the nightlife. Even though it’s been a while since my twenties, this is still my preferred travel style and reminded me a lot of my time as a backpacker in Brazil around a decade ago. If there is some downside to Koh Tao, it’s that most of the remote beaches are private and hence you have to pay to access them.

Our Stay in Koh Tao

The original plan was to stay in one of the hostels, at least for the time that Ilinca was on Koh Samui in her Yoga retreat. But then I discovered some wonderful small villas build on top of one of the hills with a magnificent view over the eastern beaches of Koh Tao. The only problem with these villas was the steep price. But as I really wanted to stay there during the nine days in total, I saw it as a challenge to negotiate the price. And it seems I am still in possession of some of my skills that I gained during my time in my startup. In the end I got the villa for half the price, and not much more expensive than a nice private room down in the village. Wonderful!

And the villa was no disappointment at all. From the terrace we could observe wonderful sunsets, observe the movements of all the boats in the bay, and sometimes even spot the mainland that is about 70 km away. And in addition, it was very quiet at night. If there is one thing I could complain about (although it is rather funny than a complaint): They advertise the villa as a luxury villa, but almost all the furniture and the kitchen were bought from IKEA. While I don’t mind IKEA in general, some things I would never buy in IKEA, such as the ugly and very uncomfortable couch or the uncomfortable dining chairs made out of plastic. But having rented the villa for half the prize, this was no big deal at all and I enjoyed every single night in the villa.

Diving Adventures on Koh Tao

In order to get some more routine and experience in diving, I was mainly busy with diving during my days alone on Koh Tao. I first got my Advanced Open Water Certification, and then added four more days of diving on the various sites around Koh Tao. In total I did 18 dives in 7 days, leaving me now with an experience of 25 dives. In addition, I am now also allowed to dive to a depth of max. 30 meters instead of only 18 meters. It might not sound like a big difference, but at many sites, the really interesting parts are below 18 meters and are now accessible to me.

Koh Tao turned out to be a perfect place for getting more diving experience. Most of the dive sites can easily be reached with a 30 min or less boat ride (and the boat was not very fast), giving me the possibility to go on three dives every day. And the variety of sea life is just amazing. Here a short list of animals that I remember: Bluespotted Ribbontail Ray, the much larger Jenkins Whipray with an estimated diameter of 1 m, an eel, scorpionfish, huge groupers and titan triggerfish, enormous schools of up to 1m long barracudas, and much more. The most fascinating moments were when I was basically surrounded with fish and integrated into the school. Wherever I looked, there were colorful fish floating gently next to me.

Unfortunately I did not have an underwater camera equipment, so I can only share a few pictures from the dive boat.

If you want to get an idea what it looks like underwater, I can recommend this movie:

Next Stop Cambodia

As our Thai entry stamp expires after 30 days, we decided to move on to Cambodia to visit Angkor Wat, one of the largest temples in the world and then start to explore more of Cambodia. As we have not seen the west coast of Thailand yet, we might however visit Thailand again in March.

In and Around Chiang Mai

Jan 9, 2018

There are two reasons to visit Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand. The first reason is the square shaped old town that used to be surrounded by a city wall and a moat, parts of which are still visible. Inside the old town, there are many Buddhist temples to visit and many nice cafés, restaurants, and massage salons. And every Sunday night there is a huge market that fills out almost half of the old town. The second reasons why someone would go to Chiang Mai is the huge offer of activities nearby. Being situated in the mountainous north of Thailand, there are rivers for kayaking and rafting, trekking opportunities, elephant sanctuaries, cooking classes, and other touristic activities such as Zip-Lining, mountain bike tours, etc.

After having seen dozens of temples in the past few days in Bangkok and Ayutthaya, I felt like getting active in Chaing Mai. I did not visit a single temple in Chiang Mai, instead I went kayaking on rivers for two days, took a cooking course with Ilinca, and visited an elephant sanctuary. For those who would like to know more about the city and the culture of Chiang Mai, please read Ilinca’s blog (http://heretoelsewhere.com/chiang-mai-cooking-thai-food-chatting-buddhist-monks-encountering-kinds-animals/).

Kayaking in White Water

Back in high school, some 17 years ago, I used to take kayaking classes for two summers and I always enjoyed this activity because it is a good workout, and the same time you get to see the river banks from a new perspective and it was also very refreshing activity. Since then, I neglected this sport and only went kayaking a few times on lakes or on the sea in Australia or New Zealand, but this is by no means the same. So when I saw in Chiang Mai that there are kayak tours on rivers available, I did not need much time to decide that I want to get back into it.

The first day I booked a guided tour on Chiang Dao River. It was an easy tour on a mostly flat river with only one small rapid, but that was good to get the river feeling again on the kayak. In addition, the scenery was very beautiful as the river went through the jungle.

On the second day kayaking I wanted to work on my technique. One of the dangers when kayaking on a river is that the rather small kayaks flip over in rough water, which leaves me head down in the water while still being inside the kayak. Obviously, this is an unpleasant situation and there are two possibilities to reach some oxygen again. Either I perform a so-called wet exit, meaning I pull up the neoprene cover of the kayak and dive out of the kayak and swim to the shore. This is easy in calm waters, but in rough waters, the second option is much safer: Roll back to the surface while staying inside the kayak, i.e. by flipping the kayak again but while being head down in the water. This so called Eskimo roll I have never done before, so day two of kayaking was basically a full day of training with a private instructor to roll properly in the water. While a lot of water was swallowed in the beginning, during the day I succeeded more and more often to roll back to the surface. And when going down an actual white water river (Mae Tang River) in the afternoon together with my instructor, my kayak flipped accidentally, and I could use the roll for the first time outside the training environment, and it worked out just fine this time. Another time I did not manage though so I had to perform the wet exit.

I guess I need a few more days of training for rolling confidently in all situations, but that day was fun and after being in the kayak for almost 5 hours, I was dead tired in the evening. If you want to know how kayaking on Mae Tang River looks like, this video gives you a small idea: https://youtu.be/ddrLm2sw4Qc

Feeding and Bathing Elephants

The elephant is not only the national animal of Thailand, but it is also a big tourist attraction all over the country. While elephant riding is unfortunately still very popular in Thailand, in recent times there are more and more elephant activities from which the elephants do not suffer that much, such as trekking with elephants, taking them for a bath, or simply feeding them.

During our stay, we also visited one of those elephant sanctuaries. We basically were preparing food for them and went with them to the river where they enjoyed a good bath. It was really nice being close to these gentle giants for an hour. Most impressive about them was their huge appetite. They were basically eating all the time. When we were not feeding them ourselves, they were feasting on leaves that they either received from their owners, or they just took from the next tree when walking through the forest.

Even though elephants now have a much better life than when they had to carry tourists on their back, I think it is still questionable to make them such a big tourist attraction. While some sanctuaries actually take care of rescue elephants and offer them a good environment after their hard work on farms, others, like the one we visited, breed elephants so they can make money with them, they don’t have any other purpose.

Cooking Thai Food at Cooking Class

Both Ilinca and I really enjoy Thai food, even though sometimes we get caught by its spiciness. While we also cook Thai food ourselves back home (mainly red curry), we wanted to extend our knowledge about Thai food. The best way to do that is to sign up for a cooking class.

The class started at the farmer’s market in Chiang Mai where our teacher showed us all the different vegetables, sauces, and ingredients required for the various dishes we were about to cook. Most interesting was the rice: There were at least ten different kinds of rice to choose from. While some of them is sticky and used often for desserts here in Thailand, others are the rice you serve with curry.

After the market we drove up to a farm a bit outside of Chiang Mai and started preparing our meals. We learned how to prepare spring rolls, Coconut soup with chicken (Tom Kha Gai), stir-fry vegetables and meat, a red curry with shrimps, papaya salad, and sticky rice with mango. It was interesting to see where all the spice in Thai food comes from. Not only are there chilies in the curry past, but when cooking the meals, more chilies are added. As we decided on our own how much chili we put in the food and could compare with how much chili the teacher put in her meals, we got a bit of a reference on how spicy the real Thai food is (as compared to tourist level spiciness).

Summary about Chiang Mai

Staying in Chiang Mai was really nice, especially after busy Bangkok. The city center has a lot to offer for tourists, and around Chiang Mai, there are plenty of activities to perform. But reaching these activities always required a transport as most of them were a 1-1.5 hour drive out of the city. And for returning to the city center, even more time was required because of the notorious traffic chaos around the city center. And usually these transports were in very uncomfortable mini buses. So in addition to the activities themselves, the car rides contributed a lot to the tiredness every evening. Luckily there are plenty of massage salons to relax a bit after these activities.

Temple Overdose at Ayutthaya

Jan 4, 2018

After five days in busy Bangkok it was time to get out of the capital, so we rented a car and drove north to Ayutthaya, the former capital of the Siam kingdom. The center of Ayutthaya is one big archeological site with numerous palaces, Buddhist temples, and statues. Unfortunately, the city has been partially destroyed by the Burmese in 1767, so what we got to see were more or less well-preserved ruins. Nevertheless, it was very interesting walking through all the parks and visit temple after temple, and because all the sites were so wide-spread, the tourist masses also distributed themselves over the sites.

After having visited 4-5 temples, we got a feeling of saturation so we did not visit every single historic building, and because we already had booked a flight that evening up to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, we returned after lunch to the airport with our rental car.

Temples, Rooftop Bars and Food Culture in Bangkok

Jan 3, 2018

After our two week Christmas break in Europe with a total climate shock, we are now continuing our travels in Thailand’s capital at temperatures that have almost become the rule for us during the past months. We chose to continue our travels in Bangkok because we both wanted to celebrate New Year’s evening in one of Asia’s most exciting cities.

First Impressions of Bangkok

Apart from two transit stops in Bangkok of very short duration, it is the first time both Ilinca and me actually make it to the city. And I was really surprised that the traffic situation was excellent on our day of arrival. As it turned out, this was only because it was an early Sunday morning. After my whole stay in Bangkok, I confirm also Bangkok, just like any other South East Asian city I’ve visited (except Singapore) has a traffic problem, but I have seen worse, e.g. in Jakarta or Kuala Lumpur.

Old Town of Bangkok

The old town of Bangkok really is quite different from its more modern neighborhoods. It is home to many of the cultural attractions such as the king’s palace, many temples, and museums. And all the small streets with its cafés, small shops, and restaurants, have its charm.

Going Out in the Old Town

Khao San Road is most likely Bangkok’s most famous road. During the day, the road is more or less calm with massage salons, restaurants, and some of street vendors. In the evening the street fills rapidly with tourists and at night there are many bars and discos attracting passing tourists with loud music and smiling Thai girls holding the menus. I guess it must be a great party location for younger and near deaf people, but for Ilinca and me, the music was way too loud. Besides, we are both still suffering from the jetlag these days.

However, only one or two blocks away there are other small streets with street food stalls and small restaurants, but without the noise from Khao San. After a tasty and spicy dinner from one of the food stalls, we had a fresh mango for dessert and later on a drink at a small café in one of the streets. We really enjoyed being outside in the pleasant temperatures in the evening (around 28° C).

The Grand Palace

Thailand is a monarchy, and as in other countries, there is at least one big palace for the king. This is no different in Bangkok where the former official palace of the king is located. The whole palace complex is very impressive and contains its own temple named Wat Phra Kaew, several former administration buildings, and of course the former residence of the royals. Especially the temple was very beautiful, even when parts of it were obstructed by construction work. Especially the murals (wall paintings) that were painted on a covered walk around the whole temple complex were very beautiful.

I was really impressed by the dimensions of the whole complex, but the masses of tourists that were flooding reduced the whole experience a bit. There were queues everywhere, when entering the palace, when buying the tickets, even when entering the temples and for taking pictures. After one hour of visiting, we were happy to leave the complex again.

Other Temples

Right next to the Grand Palace is a temple named Wat Pho. It is probably the most impressive of all the temples we have seen in Bangkok, and there were already a lot less visitors there, which made a visit much more pleasant.

There are so many temples in Bangkok’s old town, that it is almost impossible to visit them all. Ilinca and I visited at least 3 more and less know temples, and all of them were beautiful, but the more Buddha statues we saw, the more repeating each visit became. So I guess we had a slight overdose of temples in Bangkok, but for sure we will visit plenty more temples during our next weeks in Thailand.

Modern Bangkok

Modern Bangkok is a big contrast to the old town. There are sky trains and a metro, fancy hotels, shopping malls, and all the other conveniences you can find in a modern Asian metropolis. One thing modern Bangkok is really known for are its rooftop bars that provide a wonderful panorama about the vast dimensions of Bangkok. So one evening we also went up to one of these rather pricy roof top bars, but it was well worth it. Apart from the view, it was a welcome occasion to relax a bit and get out of the steamy and hot climate from down in the streets of Bangkok.

As we happened to be in Bangkok for New Year’s Eve, we decided to spend that evening at Asiatique, a shopping and entertainment complex directly at Chao Phraya, the main river that flows through Bangkok. It was an interesting experience. First we had a dinner in a small Indian restaurant, and then we sat at the river board with thousands of locals and tourists from all possible nations. And right at midnight, we could also enjoy some fireworks over the river. They were not the most impressive New Year’s fireworks I have ever seen, but it is the first time I could watch it in shorts and T-Shirts in tropical conditions. This made the whole experience very special.